Nicole woke on Saturday morning with a hive of bees in her stomach. Despite growing up in a small Texas town, she hadn’t been on a horse since her childhood riding camp.

And she was going to be riding a lot today, as well as…well, she didn’t really know what equine therapy entailed.

When Boone showed up at her house in his huge truck and wearing his cowboy hat, she knew it involved her heartbeat racing around her chest like she’d met a celebrity.

He was just so dang delicious in that hat.

“Am I really bringing Valcor and Taz?”

“Yeah, sure, they dogs just run around out there. They love it.” He gestured to the back of his truck, where both of his dogs had their front paws perched on the frame, their eyes eager and their tongues hanging out.

“Valcor weighs six pounds.”

“He can hang out in Pete’s yard. He’s got kids. They’ll love him.”

Nothing seemed to rattle Boone, and she wondered again why he went out to the ranch for therapy. Of course, he’d told her about the cows he’d lost, and maybe that haunted him more than she knew.

He also didn’t have a great relationship with his dad, and Nicole couldn’t even imagine what that was like. Her best friends growing up had been her parents and a rose bush, and she suddenly wondered why she hadn’t gone out for therapy earlier.

“So I don’t have a hat,” she said.

“Oh, hang here a sec.” He spun away from her and dashed back to his truck. She didn’t “hang there,” but stepped back inside and told Taz to come while she picked up Valcor.

“We’re going out to a ranch,” she said. “There are other dogs there, and horses, and cows, and probably some chickens.” She met Boone at the bottom of her front steps, and he presented her with a beautiful dark purple cowgirl hat.

“I got this for you.”

“When in the world did you get this?”

“Yesterday afternoon, when I left early.” He grinned at her. “You seemed like the eggplanty type.”

“Don’t ever say that again,” she said, handing him Valcor and taking the hat from him. “No woman wants to be told they’re the eggplanty type.”

He laughed and took the dogs to the back of his truck, helping Taz to jump in with his beasts.

Nicole simply held the hat, wondering how in the world to put it on. When Boone saw her, he chuckled again and said, “It just goes on top, sweetheart.” He took it from her and gently pressed it on her head, almost all the way to her ears. “Like that.”

“It’s a bit…something.”

“It’ll form to your head,” he said. “That’s why cowboys don’t share hats. They’re broken in to our exact head shape and size.”

“Really?” She glanced up at his hat. “So you wouldn’t let me borrow that?”

He pressed his hat further onto his head. “It would take a mighty act of God.”

She laughed, and he helped her into his truck. She slid across the seat so she could sit right next to him on the drive out to the ranch.

“You better tell me a little about your family,” she said. “How did your mom take the news that you were bringing your girlfriend?” The word fell from her lips, and she really liked it.

I’m Boone Carver’s girlfriend.

She’d never thought those words in that order before, and a rush of warmth filled her from top to bottom.

“She called,” Boone said. “Nearly blasted my ear off with a screech.”

Nicole laughed. “I’m surprised at that. Seems like a man like you would’ve had a lot of girlfriends.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said and didn’t elaborate. “But she was excited. I, uh, haven’t been home in a few years.”

“I thought you went after the thing in Temple.”

“I did. For a night. It’s…going there is hard for me. I had a good childhood, don’t get me wrong. But.” He sighed. “I don’t know. It’s just too hard to go there and feel like I’ve let my dad down. It’s easier if I just do my own thing.”

“What about your siblings? You talk to them?”

“My sister the most,” he said. “My older brother just got married, and I was there for that one night. I think that’s why my argument with my father was so mild.” He made the turn onto the road that led out to the ranch, bypassing the street that went down to his house without even glancing that way.

A few miles went by, indicating that Boone was finished with the family stories.

“So tell me about the therapy,” she said, her chest squeezing as she thought about getting on the huge animal.

“It’s what you want it to be,” he said. “They work with veterans and people with mental disabilities. For people like me, I can walk with the horse. Brush it down. Learn how to take care of it. Ride it. Whatever. It’s just being with the horse that matters, at least to me.”

“And you sing to yours.”

“Well, I don’t,” he said. “You’ve heard my terrible singing.”

“Oh, come on.” She looked at him to make sure he wasn’t joking. He didn’t seem to be.

“Well, I’m not you, sweetheart.” He shook his head and smiled. “I just talk to my horse. I’ve had a bit of luck with just getting out what I’m thinking to a non-judgmental party.”

“What do you tell them?”

“Whatever’s bothering me.” He cut her a glance. “It’s private. That’s the whole point.”

Nicole took the hint and the rest of the drive happened in relative silence. Her nerves doubled as he turned onto a dirt road and bumped down a ways before rounding a curve.

The ranch spread before her, and Nicole had been out here years and years ago. It was completely different now, what with two houses, and couple of huge stables, and another building that looked like it was made of windows and didn’t belong on a ranch at all.

Boone pulled into the parking lot in front of the glass building, and Nicole peered up at it. “This is where we’re going?”

“Yeah, this is where we check in.” Boone got out of his truck and extended his hand for her to take. She dropped to the ground beside him, and he wrapped one strong arm around her waist, keeping her close as he said, “I’m glad you came today.”

He stepped back as quickly as he’d melted her muscles and walked to the tailgate to let the dogs down. He collected Valcor in his arms, but the other pups all jumped down by themselves.

“This way.” He kept her poodle and went through the front doors of the building without a backward glance at his dogs as they ran off, Taz in tow.

Nicole watched them go, a tad uncertain about just letting her pug run off on this unfamiliar land. Another dog barked from somewhere over by the original homestead, and Boone said, “You okay, Nicole?”

So she turned and walked past him, hoping she could ride a horse in sneakers.

She took her dog from him while he checked in and got the names of the horses they’d be riding. “So I don’t have to ride?” she asked.

“Not if you don’t want to,” he said, glancing at the man behind the counter. “Reese here can explain more than I can.”

The man stood, but he wasn’t much taller than sitting. He came around the counter with a very defined limp, a big smile on his face. “Okay, so Boone likes to ride outdoors. Thinks the walls have ears or something.”

“Not true,” Boone protested, glancing between Reese and Nicole. “I just like the open sky.”

Reese chuckled. “Right. You can ride inside or outside. You can stay in the arena and play ball with the horse—yours is named Doughnut—or we can get a a cowboy to meet you in the barn, and he’ll teach you how to brush down the animal. Really, it’s whatever you want.” He leaned against the counter and plucked a paper from the other side of it.

“If you’d like a more coordinated care plan, we can set that up too. You’d work with the same horse every time, and you’d have a coordinator and counselor assigned to you to manage the care.”

Nicole looked back and forth from Reese to Boone. “I…I want to ride.” She wasn’t sure where the words came from. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a horse.”

“That’s fine.” Reese smiled, slipping the paper back over the counter. “Let’s go out to the barn, and then I’ll take your pup over to Pete’s.” He collected Valcor from her and started down the hallway.

Nicole followed. She listened. She put her foot where the cowboy named Bennett said, and she somehow landed in the saddle on top of a beautiful brown horse named Doughnut.

“All right,” Bennett said, swinging onto his horse. “Are we staying in or going out?”

Boone had saddled and mounted his horse, tipped his hat to her, and left several minutes ago. She wasn’t sure if she should be alarmed or not. But they weren’t in group therapy, and he’d already made it very clear that he liked his private sessions with the horses and the wide open sky.

Nicole gathered her courage and said, “I think outside, if that’s okay.”

“Sure thing,” Bennett drawled, and he led her toward the huge doors at the end of the row. Doughnut simply moved behind his horse, slow and methodical, like he was bored to death.

Outside, everything improved. The sun shone warmly but Nicole enjoyed the feel of it on her bare arms.

Bennett said, “This field is fenced, and you can take as long as you want,” before he went back inside and left her alone.

Just her and the horse. Her and this beautiful country. She leaned down and patted Doughnut’s neck. “All right, boy. Let’s walk.”

She nudged her horse the way Bennett had taught her, and Doughnut plodded forward obediently. So maybe this horseback riding thing wasn’t so hard.

A measure of pride and accomplishment filled Nicole, and she let Doughnut migrate to the fence and simply walk along it.

She just let the wind whisper, and the horse walk, and her pulse eventually calmed. She felt a keen sense of peace descend upon her, and she hadn’t felt this way in a long, long time.

Her life in Three Rivers had always felt caged in. She’d been trapped here since she was old enough to boil water, and the thought of driving several long hours to Hill Country brought a sense of excitement bubbling through her.

“So, I’ve never left Three Rivers for much of anything,” she told Doughnut. “And I get to go to Grape Seed Falls for Thanksgiving. Have you traveled a lot?”

Of course, the horse didn’t answer, and Nicole continued on about how excited she was for the trip, to meet Boone’s family, and to have a little vacation.

“But really,” she said, probably going around for the sixth time. “I’m nervous about leaving Mama and Daddy here for the holidays. I’m sure they can go next door, though.”

Doughnut nickered, almost like he was reassuring her that her parents would be okay here alone for a few days. Nicole’s nerves reappeared, but they quickly evaporated again.

It was simply very hard to feel like the weight of the world mattered out here, almost like this ranch didn’t experience the same gravity as everywhere else.

“Yeah.” She patted the horse again and added, “But I’m really nervous about singing in the Christmas program. Like, really nervous.”

She’d looked through the music, and it wasn’t too far from the standard stuff. A couple of rearrangements that she’d already memorized. She’d been singing them in the shower, the only place she really allowed herself to sing.

The humming and low vocalizations around the animal hospital were nothing to what she could actually do, and out here on the ranch, she actually felt confident enough that she could sing in front of people.

Well, maybe just this horse. She pushed out all of her breath and took in a new one. Then she opened her mouth and started singing.